Minette Walters - The Ice House

"There isn't a plus side," she said, suddenly serious, "not for you. I'll get bored, I always do, and when something better comes along, as it surely will, I'll dump you just as I've dumped everyone else. We'll have a halfway decent bonk from time to time, but you'll pay heavily in emotion for what you can buy free of strings in Southampton. Is that what you want?"

He regarded her thoughtfully. "Is this a regular turn-off, or am I privileged?"

She smiled. "Regular. I like to be fair."

"And what's the drop-out rate at this stage?"

"Low," she said ruefully. "A few sensible ones leg it. The rest plunge in thinking they're going to change me. They don't. You won't." She watched his expression. "Getting cold feet?"

"Well, I can't say I fancy it much," he admitted. "It sounds horribly like the relationship I had with my wife, dull, stifling and leading nowhere. I had no idea you were so narrow-minded. Put in 'frightened to explore' after 'selfish, self-opinionated and self-centred,' and I guarantee the drop-out rate, pre-copulation, will astonish you." He took her arm and steered her towards the window.

"Let's eat," he said. "My judgement's better on a full stomach. I'll decide then whether I want to sow my seed in sterile ground."

She pulled away. "Go fuck yourself, McLoughlin."

"Getting cold feet, Cattrell?"

She laughed. "I'll turn off the lights." She slipped back to the door and plunged the room into darkness. He took out his torch and waited by the windows. As she approached, she neatly avoided a small table with a bronze statuette of a naked woman on it. "Me," she said. "When I was a nubile seventeen-year-old. I had a bit of a thing going with the sculptor during one school holidays."

He lit it with the torch and studied it with interest. "Nice," he said appreciatively.

She chuckled as she followed him out. "The figure or the sculpture?"

"Both. Do you lock these doors?" he asked, sliding them to behind him.

"I can't, not from the outside. They'll be all right."

He put a hand on the back of her neck and walked her across the terrace on to the lawn. An owl hooted in the distance. He looked back at the house to get his bearings and half-turned her to the left. "This way," he said, flashing the torch ahead of them. "I parked the car in a lane that runs along the corner." Beneath his fingers he could feel the tightness of her skin. They walked in silence until they entered the woodland bordering the lawn. Away to their left, something scuttered noisily through the undergrowth. Her skin leapt with fear, jolting him as violently as it jolted her. "For God's sake, woman," McLoughlin growled, swinging his torch beam among the trees. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" He shone the torch into her eyes, suddenly angry. "You've buried yourself alive, erected a mountain of barbed wire over the mound, and you call it nothing. She's not worth it. Can't you see that? What the hell can she ever have done for you that you have to sacrifice your whole life in exchange? For Christ's sake, do you enjoy dying by inches? What happened to the Anne Cattrell who seduced sculptors in her school holidays? Where's the thorn in the Establishment's flesh who stormed citadels single-handed?"

She pushed the torch away and her teeth gleamed momentarily as she smiled. "It was fun while it lasted, McLoughlin, but I did tell you not to try and change me."

She was gone so fast that even his torch beam couldn't follow her.

He let her go and set off back to his car. He knew that if he went after her, her windows would be locked. He felt regret and relief in equal measure, like the suicide playing Russian roulette who hears the hammer click against an empty chamber. The Station was lousy with women wanting to console him. To hold a loaded gun to his temple by seeking his consolation with her was madness. He swiped in angry frustration at the branches of a tree and ripped the flesh on the side of his hand. He sucked the blood and swore profusely. He was in a mess, and he knew it. He needed a drink.

An owl screeched. Somewhere, far away, he thought he heard voices. He turned his head to listen but the silence only thickened about him. He shrugged and walked on, and it came again, a thread of sound, insubstantial-imagined? The skin on his scalp prickled uneasily. Damn the woman, he thought. If he went back, she would laugh at him.

He was cursing himself for a fool by the time he reached the terrace. He had seen no one, the house was in darkness and Anne was obviously already tucked up in bed. He flashed his torch across the flagstones and lit up her half-opened French window. With a frown, he walked over to it and shone his torch round the interior. He found her almost immediately. He thought she was asleep until he saw the blood glistening in her velvet cap of hair.

After the first paralysing moment of shock, he set to with such speed that time became elastic. In ten seconds he had worked up a sweat mat would be rare after an hour's strenuous effort. His torch beam found a table lamp which he switched on as he sank to his knees beside the crumpled heap of clothes. He felt for a pulse in her neck, couldn't find one; laid his head on her chest, no heartbeat. With one fluid movement he rolled the tiny body over, shoved a hand under her neck, pinched her nostrils closed and began mouth-to-mouth respiration. He needed help. The part of his brain that wasn't directly concerned with the resuscitation directed him backwards, drawing the lifeless body with him, feeling with his feet for the table with the bronze statuette. He found it. While he continued the regular in-flows of air, he gave a vicious backward kick and sent the heavy bronze smashing through the plate-glass window. The glass exploded outwards on to the terrace, shattering the silence of the night and sending Benson and Hedges into a frenzy of alarm in another part of the house. He realised with a sense of desperation that he was getting no response. Her face was grey, her lips blue. He placed the heel of his right hand over her breast bone and with the heel of his left hand pressed down, rocking forward, arms straight. While his mouth was free, he shouted for help. After five compressions, he gave her another mouth-to-mouth respiration, before returning to the heart massage. As he rocked forward on the third compression, he saw Jonathan press his fingers against the colourless neck and feel for the pulse.

"Give her another breath," said Jonathan. "There's a very faint pulse. My bag, Mum. It's in the hall."

McLOughlin breathed again into her lungs and, this time, when he turned his head to look at her chest it fluttered weakly. "Keep going," said Jonathan, "one breath every five seconds until she's breathing normally. You're doing great." He took his bag from a white-faced Phoebe. "Get some blankets," he told her. "Hot-water bottles, anything to keep her warm. And get an ambulance." He took out his stethoscope, pulled open Anne's shirt and listened for the heartbeat. "Brilliant," he said warmly. "It's weak, but there." He pinched her cheek and watched with relief as the sluggish blood tinged it faintly pink. Her breathing began to take on a regular rhythm. Gently, he pushed McLoughlin off. "OK," he said. "I think she's under her own steam now. We'll put her in the recovery position." With the Sergeant's help he pulled her arm across her midriff, then rolled her on to her front, turning her face gently to one side and bending her nearest arm and leg at the elbow and knee. Her breathing was slow but even. She muttered something into the carpet and opened her eyes.

"Hey, McLoughlin," she said distinctly before giving a huge yawn and falling asleep.

Mclaughlin's face was running with sweat. He sat back and wiped it with his shirt sleeve. "Can't you give her something?"